Foul! Increased drought, declining runoff recharge, and mandatory water restrictions. Our water supply is dropping quickly, and that’s something to fear.
However, innovators all around the world have been working on solutions to this challenge. Including, Sustainable Water who funded an entire operation at Emory University.
With Atlanta being the largest municipal on the smallest watershed, it’s no surprise this team saw the urgency in developing a solution. To learn more about Atlanta’s drought status, check out this link. Sustainable Water recognized this problem and decided to create a WaterHub (an on-site water recycling system). The WaterHub’s main goal is reclamation and reuse of water throughout campus.
Though water reclamation and reuse sounds like a crazy complicated process, it can be simplified down to a game of football. And since we’re speaking about Emory University (where football doesn’t exist), let’s discuss it in terms of a pickup game of football.
This whole process starts with the extraction and screening. You draft the players to participate but leave those few “trash” players with butterfingers behind.
Afterward, the group splits up into two teams. The Hydroponic team and the Reciprocating Wetland Title System team. I know, that’s a long name so let’s refer to them as the RWTS’s. A big majority of the players go to the hydroponic team though because they can hold more players.
So, the referee blows the whistle and the defensive team, the hydroponics, kick the ball. The players spread out among the field, trying to cover the utmost space. By spreading out, they can tackle as many players (waste) as possible. This happens to be particularly similar to the honeycomb-shaped pieces that float around in the moving bed bioreactor.
After the kickoff, the hydroponics spread out among the field. They then tackle the players that try to cross them. The defensive backs, which lay near the bottom of the field, are like the netting system which tackles the players (waste) as it comes through.
Meanwhile, as the hydroponics try and stop the RWTS’s, the offensive RWTS players move the ball up and down the field, blocking the defensive players from moving through towards the end zone (clean water). The up and down motion is particularly important in the end result, a touchdown (clean water).
At the end of the game, the hydroponics and the RWTS’s come together as one where they let the losers (dirty water) settle to the bottom of the field and the winners jump up in victory.
Finally, they go through a final cleaning of their muddy selves. Then back to Raoul for a redistribution of players for the next game!
As you can see, Emory University has led a movement towards more eco-friendly campuses. Their innovation not only improves our campus but also inspires other campuses around the country. Hopefully, in the future, Emory and other campuses will continue to tackle these issues through innovation.
Works Cited
“Drought Status.” Metropolitan North Georgia Water Planning District,
northgeorgiawater.org/current-water-stats/drought-status/.
(The photograph was posted to Flickr by Ken Lane and can be found here. Licensing to this photograph can be found here. )
Climate Change 